CALL FOR PAPERS Translations of Medicine, History and Ethics
CALL FOR PAPERS
Medicine, Translations and Histories
11-12 June 2015, University of Manchester, UK
As a widely-circulated article in the Journal of the
American Medical Association argued in 2008, the emerging field of
Translational Medicine (TM) can be defined in two very different ways: first,
the study of the specific ‘bench-to-bedside’ enterprise of harnessing knowledge
from basic sciences to produce new drugs, devices and treatment options for
patients; and secondly, the more general business of translating research into
clinical practice, ensuring new treatments and research knowledge actually
reach the patients or populations for whom they are intended.(1) In policy, these two areas are mostly framed
in terms of how new knowledge and practices can be developed and tested faster,
and then how innovations can be disseminated more rapidly into practice. To these two definitions of the problem of
translation in medicine, we would add a third, unstated issue: what
translations the research of historians, ethnographers, ethicists and other
social scientists must undergo in order to engage with clinical practice,
health policy, and more general public concerns about health and the healthcare
system today.
Historians of medicine and medical journal editors alike
are concerned about the paucity of historical perspective in contemporary
policymaking and the communication gap between research, practice, and policy
in the field of medical history.(2)
The Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine (CHSTM),
University of Manchester and the Institute of the History of Medicine, Johns
Hopkins University, USA, are holding a meeting in Manchester in June 2015 to
bring together historians, social scientists, and the policy community to
explore critically the issues around Translational Medicne set out above. We
hope to attract practitioners and stakeholders to engage in a dialogue on how
History might inform, and contribute to the transformation of, medical
education and practice.
Topics will include, but are not limited to:
• translational
research in practice: histories, ethnographies and ethics
• material and
conceptual studies of medical innovation
• models of
translation in medicine, public health, and health policy
• studying
translation between the public and private sector
• translational
medicine in the medical curriculum
• cross
national, international and transnational accounts of translational medicine
• interdisciplinarities
with history, ethics, social sciences, and the medical humanities
• the roles of
history, social science, and medical humanities in medical education,
biomedical research and clinical practice.
Deadline for abstracts of a maximum of 300 words: 14
February 2015.
We will be applying for conference funding and hope to be
able offer support to speakers.
Please send abstracts to: michael.worboys@manchester.ac.uk
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(1) Steven H.
Woolf, ‘The Meaning of Translational Research and Why It Matters’, JAMA,
2008;299(2):211-213.
(2) See Carsten
Timmermann’s blog on the history of medicine: http://www.theguardian.com/science/the-h-word/2014/aug/04/not-moribund-historian-medicine-response-richard-horton